West Sacramento paid $300K for a landmark sculpture. Why did it scrap its plans?
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- West Sacramento canceled a $300K sculpture project due to lead paint concerns.
- Contractor bids for lead removal tripled initial budget, exceeding city estimates.
- Artist Tamara Johnson halted other work, suffering a four-year career setback.
The sculpture of a residence represented a home for everyone and no one.
The West Sacramento City Council commissioned the artwork in March 2022 to perch atop a metal tower just north of the Sacramento River, visible to drivers on Interstate 5. Texas-based artist Tamara Johnson, selected to make the art, pored through Sacramento and Yolo counties’ histories when drafting a proposal and settled on creating a sculpture of a home.
“I know that this project was going to bring joy, bring curiosity, bring confusion, bring conflict, bring the haters, the lovers,” Johnson said.
The city paid about $300,000 to begin the project Johnson called “lighthouse.” But in June, the city officially scrapped its plans for the art installation after declining to immediately remove lead found in the tower, Johnson said in a Wednesday phone interview.
“It’s a bummer because taxpayer money has gone to waste, and now you have a tower full of lead sitting there,” she said.
City Council members in March 2022 approved a contract with Johnson to place artwork on a preexisting tower on Third and B streets as part of a plan to extend the River Walk Trail. A selection panel ranked Johnson’s proposal the best out of four artists.
“It is a work that invites contemplation on one of the most pressing topics of our time,” according to a March 2022 staff report. “It is accessed by different experiences, at ground level and from a distance.”
Johnson, who teaches sculpture at Texas State University, prefers working with public art because of the broad audience it can reach. The home, which would glow at night, meant to reflect residents’ relationships with their residence across time.
She studied the devastation floods from the Sacramento River wrought across centuries and was inspired by the constant rebuilding. The sculpture — sitting out of reach on a high tower — also symbolized how buying a home today for many is impossible amid high housing prices.
The area underneath the tower, surrounded by a residential neighborhood, would also have a bicycle rest stop, according to the staff report. A concrete slab on the ground had the home’s footprint and backyard items cast in bronze, Johnson said.
But the tower contained lead-based paint, which was “identified early in the planning process,” said Paul Hosley, a city spokesperson. The city’s contract to build the sculpture cost about $375,000, in addition to $250,000 set aside for retrofitting the tower, remediating the lead-based paint and staff time, he said.
Hosley said “market conditions and the complexity of the work” prompted contractors to provide bids costing triple what city officials originally anticipated when budgeting to remove lead paint.
“The tower’s large size and proximity to public areas at ground level contributed to the increased scope and cost,” he said.
The city approved plans to build a fence around the tower and will remove the lead-based paint if the site is accessible to the public, he said.
Johnson said she built relationships across years with about 12 subcontractors she hired to help her build this sculpture. She set aside other projects to focus her time on this installation, but its cancellation set her back about four years in her career.
“The echo of this piece was going to be so large,” she said, “You quite don’t know how to measure it.”
This story was originally published August 1, 2025 at 1:40 PM.
